i7 partitioning ideas

Forums › Mac OS › i7 partitioning ideas

honem

194 posts

Master Geek

Trusted

#68834 29-Sep-2010 04:05

Sooo my new i7 Imac's going to be arriving soonish

It has a 1 TB drive. Any ideas on how I should partition it ?

I know I want a Time Machine partition as well as a OS X and Windows/Linux partition.

I'm thinking of something like this

Small OS X system files partition
--------------------------------------------
Small Windows system file partition
--------------------------------------------
Small Linux system file partition
--------------------------------------------
Fairly large sized Misc Files partition
-------------------------------------------
Time Machine partition same size as Misc files partition

Just not sure on the sizes that's all ....

==================================
- Hone , Often accused of Excess Verbosity
==================================

Batman

Mad Scientist
29715 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#385707 29-Sep-2010 07:20

= very very slow drive!>??

Backblaze

Backblaze Unlimited Backup. World’s easiest cloud backup. Get peace of mind knowing your files are backed up securely in the cloud (affiliate link).

josephhinvest

1543 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

#385757 29-Sep-2010 10:02

Is there any point making a Time Machine partition on your primary drive?
You will be backing up your hard drive, to itself. If your drive fails, your backup will fail too.
External hard drives are cheap, you should have one for your Time Machine backup...

2 TB USB drive for $229 from PBTech.

Cheers,
Joseph.

wazzageek

1093 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#387239 2-Oct-2010 23:20

There's no point having Time Machine on the same disk - I'm not sure if OS X will let you choose the same physical disk (I thought it would refuse).

Depending on what you are planning to use each OS for, I would probably consider some virtual machine funkiness (RAM becomes the critical factor then ;-))

Eg. Do you plan on being in OS X the most? Or Windows? Or Linux?

Are you evaluating many different flavours of linux?

tardtasticx

3075 posts

Uber Geek

#387241 2-Oct-2010 23:26

I'd get an external drive for time machine, and partition it like this:

700GB = misc. files
100GB = Windows
100GB = Linux
Rest of GB = OSX

100GB is still a lot considering you would probably have all your files on the misc. partition? (your going to be using that on all OS's right? so you dont have like, heaps of duplicates) and it keeps everything nice and organised

honem

194 posts

Master Geek

Trusted

#387267 3-Oct-2010 01:39

Thanks for all the input guys. Last few days has been a bit crazy so haven't had a chance to answer.

I made a thread on the official Mac Tech support forums about it and few Apple Technicians answered on there with basically what you guys are saying : Don't put the time machine partition on the same Hard Drive.

I've also found out that Bootcamp is non destructive so I shouldn't have to reformat for a while. Setting up this new computer is so crazy mad that for now I'm just going to concentrate on getting things up and running first then worry about partitioning craziness at some other point :)

I've also managed to blow away my backup drive as well so I'll need to do a backup of my stuff again before playing with anything else :(

==================================
- Hone , Often accused of Excess Verbosity
==================================

tardtasticx

3075 posts

Uber Geek

#387345 3-Oct-2010 10:51

Lol, good luck then.

wellyg33k

71 posts

Master Geek

#388200 5-Oct-2010 13:08

What are you using Windows for? I always end up saving too much space for the Windows side of things and regret I don't have the space for the Mac part of things

honem

194 posts

Master Geek

Trusted

#388401 5-Oct-2010 18:28

wellyg33k: What are you using Windows for? I always end up saving too much space for the Windows side of things and regret I don't have the space for the Mac part of things

Probably to run the odd program that doesn't have a Macintosh equivalent and/or a Game or 2.

I plan on doing all my main stuff in OS X.

==================================
- Hone , Often accused of Excess Verbosity
==================================

wazzageek

1093 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#389449 8-Oct-2010 09:44

honem:
wellyg33k: What are you using Windows for? I always end up saving too much space for the Windows side of things and regret I don't have the space for the Mac part of things
Probably to run the odd program that doesn't have a Macintosh equivalent and/or a Game or 2.

I plan on doing all my main stuff in OS X.

What have you found that doesn't have a Mac equivalent? So far I've found IE, Outlook and the VMWare Infrastructure client. VMWare server 2.0 console is screwy too.

I'd seriously suggest that you run those in a virtualised environment (if you have kit that needs direct access to the hardware, then you may be better off with a dedicated box - I'm thinking dataloggers etc, here)

For Gaming, use bootcamp and reboot. If you're gaming is like mine (i.e. once every 6 months and old, old games) then you should be able to get away with 80GB.

You *might* be able to use the same license for both the virtualised machine and the bootcamp version as you can only run one at a time - give Microsoft a call and ask them (They do have funny terms when it comes to virtualisation, but I think they've relaxed a little since then)

Also, note that the Boot camp drivers give you access to your Mac partitions - so you may get away with having the largest partition for the Mac only.

Cheers!

honem

194 posts

Master Geek

Trusted

#389649 8-Oct-2010 17:37

wazzageek: What have you found that doesn't have a Mac equivalent? So far I've found IE, Outlook and the VMWare Infrastructure client. VMWare server 2.0 console is screwy too.

Well mostly games and things that don't have an OS X version. I'm not actually too clear on what in particular since over the years if a program didn't have a OS X equivalent, I just either found a way around it or forgot about doing the thing I wanted to do.

I would like to give the PC Vent client a go to stream music to my friends on vent as I don't know a good and fast way of doing that on OS X that doesn't require me to spend a few hours on it. Don't get me wrong you probably could do it with some doing but if I can just launch a virtualised environment it would be easier as often times it's a spur of the moment thing to play some music on vent for people and often times the moment can pass before you have it all figured out.

wazzageek: I'd seriously suggest that you run those in a virtualised environment (if you have kit that needs direct access to the hardware, then you may be better off with a dedicated box - I'm thinking dataloggers etc, here)

Actually tried that last night. Tried both Crossover Games and Parallels. I installed Steam over Crossover games and installed Recettear which unfortunately doesn't have a OS X version out on Steam yet. Seemed to run fine :)

wazzageek: For Gaming, use bootcamp and reboot. If you're gaming is like mine (i.e. once every 6 months and old, old games) then you should be able to get away with 80GB.

Nice tips thank you :)

Will come back to this thread when I need to do anything about installing in windows stuff :)

==================================
- Hone , Often accused of Excess Verbosity
==================================